Week 1 - Methodological approaches to studying cognition

Question 1

What is cognition?

Answer 1

fundamental knowledge of how our minds work

Question 2

What are some practical applications of cognition in psychology?

Answer 2

CBT, false memory, eyewitness testimony, rare target visual search (airport baggage screening, diagnostic medical imaging)

Question 3

Where did cognitive psychology come from?

Answer 3

Elements of behaviourism combined with introspective processes

Question 4

How can we study cognition (something invisible)?

Answer 4

Measure the effect

Question 5

What are the two main types of variables? Explain each

Answer 5

Independent variable: experimentally manipulated factor
Dependent variable: measure outcome variable

Question 6

What are the common types of independent variables (IV)? (3) What is an example of each?

Answer 6

1. Experimental conditions e.g. experimentally manipulate caffeine and measure it’s effect on vigilance
2. Neurophysiological or clinical case approaches e.g. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), brain region damage
3. Individual-difference approaches e.g. levels of empathy measured by questionnaire

Question 7

How can experimental conditions be manipulated? What do experimental manipulations enable us to do?

Answer 7

Flexible approach accommodating range of manipulations
Allows us to draw causal conclusions when experiment is designed correctly (i.e. IV is manipulated (not measured) and produces change in DV)

Question 8

What is TMS and how does it work?

Answer 8

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
- Small electrical currents produced by coil in tissue by electromagnetic induction.
- temporary impairment induced in region
- used to study role of particular region in a cognitive process

Question 9

How do individual-difference approaches vary from other approaches?

Answer 9

• Measure naturally occurring differences
• Treat IV as continuous (preferred)

Question 10

What are the common types of dependent variable measures? (3)

Answer 10

Behavioural, physiological and peripheral physiological

Question 11

What are the 2 main DVs measured for behavioural experiments?

Answer 11

Accuracy and Response Time

Question 12

What are eye-tracking studies commonly measuring? (4)

Answer 12

Saccadic latency, saccadic trajectory, point of first fixation, total fixation time in a region of interest

Question 13

What is an example of an eye-tracking study?

Answer 13

Spatial neglect study - pts w/ spatial neglect cannot see and do not process the left side of their vision, control pts look at both sides of image v.s. SN pts only look at right side

Question 14

What are the 3 main types of central physiological measures? What does each measure?

Answer 14

EEG: measuring electrical activity emanating from cortex
ERP: time locked avg EEG (related to stimulus)
fMRI: avg. hemodynamic response blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) changes

Question 15

What are the pros and cons of EEG and fMRI?

Answer 15

EEG: good temporal resolution, poor spatial resolution
fMRI: good spatial resolution, poor temporal resolution

Question 16

What is a limitation of all physiological measures?

Answer 16

pointing to an area of the brain is not an explanation of a process

Question 17

What are the 2 types of peripheral physiological measures? What does each measure?

Answer 17

Facial EMG: muscle contraction electrical activity during psychological processes
Skin conductance: measuring amount of sweat generated, physiological arousal

Question 18

What is an example of both peripheral physiological measures in a study?

Answer 18

Facial EMG: zygomaticus major activity in positive emotions
Skin conductance: pleasant example: erotic images of a couple vs. negative example: murder scene

Question 19

What are the pros and cons of peripheral physiological measures?

Answer 19

Pros: objective and implicit
Cons: intensive testing, may be less sensitive to similar emotions e.g. fear vs disgust

Question 20

What is a liberal vs conservative response criterion?

Answer 20

Liberal: more hits and false alarms (more likely to say the target is present)
Conservative: more misses and correct rejections (more likely to say the target is not present)

Question 20

Imagine a researcher is interested in how children’s reading skills develop over time. To investigate this, she has children 3 years old, 5 years old, and 7 years old read aloud a given passage of text. What sorts of measures should the researcher record in order to gauge reading skill?

Answer 20

Accuracy of reading and response time

Question 20

What is signal detection theory (SDT)? When is it important?

Answer 20

Differentiates participants sensitivity from response bias in uncertain contexts.
Important in experiments where participants are determining whether they have sufficient evidence to respond

Question 21

A research team is interested in whether playing video games improves spatial reasoning. They assign participants to play video games daily for a week or to a control condition that does not play video games. After the one-week trial, participants are given a battery of 30 spatial reasoning questions. Those who played video games solve more spatial reasoning questions
correctly and completed the battery more quickly than those who did not. What would the conclusion be if the participants who played video games completed the battery more quickly, but made more errors?

Answer 21

Speed increased but not accuracy therefore just faster not better

Question 22

If a participant is making a judgement about whether there is a subtle smile in a photograph of a person’s face, the participant responds smile present, and the person in the photograph is not smiling, then what is this outcome called in Signal Detection Theory?

Answer 22

False alarm

Question 23

If a participant is making a judgement about whether there is a subtle smile in a photograph of a person’s face, the participant responds smile present, and the person in the photograph is smiling, then what is this outcome called in Signal Detection Theory?

Answer 23

Hit

Question 24

If a participant is making a judgement about whether there is a subtle smile in a photograph of a person’s face, the participant responds smile absent, and the person in the photograph is not smiling, then what is this outcome
called in Signal Detection Theory?

Answer 24

Correct rejection

Question 25

If a participant is making a judgement about whether there is a subtle smile in a photograph of a person’s face, the participant responds smile absent, and the person in the photograph is smiling, then what is this outcome called
in Signal Detection Theory?

Answer 25

Miss

Question 26

If the participant increases the proportion of hits and false alarms that they make in this judgement, has their sensitivity or criterion changed?

Answer 26

Criterion changed to more liberal

Question 27

If the participant increases the proportion of hits and correct rejections that they make in this judgement, has their sensitivity or criterion changed?

Answer 27

Sensitivity has increased

Question 28

A researcher wants to investigate whether REM sleep facilitates memory consolidation. To do this, they plan to give participants lists of words to remember, have the participants sleep naturally overnight while measuring the amount of time they spend in REM sleep to see whether this predicts their recall performance
the next day. What measure should they use to assess the amount of time they spent in REM sleep? What measure should they use to assess their memory recall performance the next day?

Answer 28

EEG: electrical activity coming from the brain and what type of sleep the participant is in
Recall task using signal detection (list both words from original list and not)

Question 29

A researcher wants to test whether baggage screeners at the airport who undergo an elite training program are subsequently more likely to detect weapons when screening luggage. What measures would be important to consider in determining the effectiveness of this program? In relation to SDT what results are ideal?

Answer 29

Pre and post test results
SDT: preference for a slightly more liberal screener but mostly high sensitivity (and accuracy)

Question 30

A researcher wants to test whether the prefrontal cortex is implicated in the ability to rapidly switch between different tasks. What would be a good measure or technique to use?

Answer 30

FMRI used to track activation of PFC compared to control
Lesion study:
- TMS temporarily impairing function of PFC
- Patients with damage to PFC vs. Those without or pts with damage to other parts of the brain

Question 30

A researcher wants to determine whether visual attention is captured by stimuli that have particularly high self-relevance. What would be a good measure or technique to use?

Answer 30

• Pair stimulus that is both self-relevant and non-self-relevant and use eye tracking studies to measure how long the stimulus is looked at
• Behavioural: using accuracy and RT instead of eye-tracking

Question 31

A researcher wants to study whether emotions can be elicited by stimuli that are presented subliminally (unconsciously). What kind of measure would be useful as a dependent variable for this question?

Answer 31

Skin conductance - response even if evidence of trying to suppress response

Question 32

A researcher is interested in whether the motor cortex responds less to mental imagery of imagined actions (e.g., kicking a ball) when participants have to say words aloud at the same time as they engaged in the mental imagery versus when they do not have to say words aloud. Would TMS be a good dependent variable to test this study, why or why not?

Answer 32

No, TMS is not a DV it is an IV (as it’s something we manipulate not measure.
Use ERP or fMRI instead

Question 33

Why can ERP never be fully objective?

Answer 33

The results still need to be interpreted which is not objective